David Wu
Director, Great China | Visit Finland
Q: Is there any adjustment made to the marketing/promotional plan of the year due to the COVID-19 situation? Is there any new plan/initiative created specifically for the situation?
A: Due to the epidemic outbreak, we have postponed or cancelled quite a number of market promotion plans and activities, including Visit Finland China Roadshow 2020 in March; and ITB China 2020 in May, meanwhile it affected somehow most of the online and offline promotion projects which will be adjusted later. May 12th, we launched “Rent a Finn 2.0” campaign on social media channels to share the Finnish life style which are nature oriented and full of happiness, so that people could hold the dream about their next journey even though now they can’t travel yet. As an upgraded version of “Rent a Finn” global campaign in 2019, Visit Finland has made great efforts to demonstrate Finnish happiness by a series of livestream broadcast “Eat With A Finn”, “Relax With A Finn”, “Stay Active With A Finn”, besides, participants can apply to have virtual “one-to-one” session with our happiness guides.
As the epidemic situation gradually stabilizes, we will try to carry out online and offline B2B trade activities in the next half year, to make our contribution to restoring the confidence for tourism industry.
Q: Has your office/destination carried out any campaign/initiative during the COVID-19 situation? How do you see the effect?
A: Finland suspected imported cases of COVID-19 infection on January 22nd, which was within the traditional peak travel season for Chinese tourists to Finland. Visit Finland immediately released announcement to Chinese tourists on Chinese social media channels, to notify how to seek help in Finland in that critical circumstances. This thoughtful move was well received and noticed by many and led to our Wechat article with 100,000+ views.
During the epidemic outbreak, we have remained active interactions on social media with the followers who are interested in Finland. On B2B side, we have carried out quite many online trainings, which we will continue for sure in the future. In addition to providing new destination knowledge to our trade partners, we take this opportunity to show our compassion and kindness.
Meanwhile, we interactively explore new ways of online promotion, for example livestream broadcast, which can present the unique charm of our destination in a more direct way.
Q: Is there any other campaign/initiative that is under planning for the next step?
A: Currently, we are busy with planning a variety of activities for post-epidemic and recovery period, including B2B and B2C promotions, online and offline. At the same time, we’ve taken time to develop one online tool for trade and media partners, which will be available in summer time. We believe with this new tool, our trade and media partners will find it more convenient to access our first hand destination information and material. Please stay tuned.
Q: When the situation stabilizes, will your office/destination take any preferential measures that stimulate overseas visits and/or benefit the businesses in the source market?
A: As mentioned, we’ve started to plan a series of activities for the post-epidemic period, to restore the confidence from both tourists and our trade partners in long-haul travel products. Of course, we will be active in responding to all the call, policies and regulations, issued by Chinese government, do our best to help Chinese tourists travel comfortably, safely and happily.
Q: Why is it important to continue doing a good job in destination marketing and promotion during the COVID-19 situation when tourism has virtually stopped?
A: We need to stay active to maintain the destination image by constantly refreshing the consumers’ perception of Finland. By diverse ways of promotion and social media marketing, we strive to approach new target audience, let more people know and like Finland. During the epidemic, people have no choice but to stay at home, but the travel demand remains or is even stronger, Visit Finland has explored ‘online travel’ to alleviate that demand. Furthermore, this year is the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Finland. We hope the tourism promotion will reinforce the people-to-people ties existing between our two nations already!
Q: In ONE sentence, what is the most important message you’d like to share with the WTA members and the readers of our column?
A: I wish everyone stay healthy, safe and positive, and look forward to seeing outbound travel to reboot soon!